10 Across seating on an Airbus A350. It seems one carrier has gone through with it and has chosen to install it on their brand new plane.
Step forward Air Caraïbes
Air Caraïbes A350-900 – Image, Airbus.
The Airbus A350 – well, I think most of you know about. The story of this plane, however, is not on the outside – however, pretty the winglet is.
Bonus marks for the winglet – Image, Airbus.
Its on the inside that matters this time.
Air Caraïbes today receives its first 10-abreast configured #A350 (via @BrunoTrevidic) #PaxEx #Airbus pic.twitter.com/w5TDmeamnQ
— Karel Souffriau (@karelxwb) February 28, 2017
There’s a three-class cabin in play. The business class seats have been confirmed as Stelia Aerospace Equinox 3D Seats. These appear to be in a 1-2-1 formation.
Premium Economy will be a 3-3-3 affair, and down the back – the first 3-4-3 operation out there
The plane itself is leased from Nederlands lessor AerCap.
Air Caraïbes will fly between Paris Orly Sud and Fort-de-France and Pointe-à-Pitre in the French Carribean territories, with it supporting its dense A330s on the transatlantic journeys
Is this the start of a trend for operators to densify the A350? I’m not sure. This is one of the first leisure operators take delivery of the A350 in a very limited role (the airline will have a total of 2 A350-900s and 1 A350-1000), so a very different market to those who have taken the aircraft already.
For now, this is a wait and see game to see if the more business orientated airlines follow.
I would think leisure carriers may be keeping a close eye on this to see how they can densify their planes and operations – certainly with a packed business class, an uprated economy product to be a premium economy, and a tight economy class could deliver the economics these carriers love…
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